Riot Street

by Tyler King

  “I have a hard time believing that made her an outcast.”

  Riot Street is far from stodgy. It built its reputation on experimentation and a radical commitment to questioning authority. In every era of major American conflict since the magazine’s inception, it has been an outspoken proponent of progressivism and free expression. Riot Street is special for its contribution to the voice of the counterculture.

  “Vee could be brash and abrasive. She had a habit of calling out her colleagues for what she perceived as weak journalistic integrity. Publicly, in some instances.”

  “Meaning?”

  Ethan checks his mirrors, merging onto the parkway headed east toward Queens.

  “Well, more than once she Tweeted rather blunt takedowns of other reporters’ work. That’s all well and good when you’re taking the competition to task. It doesn’t go over well when you do it to members of your own staff, though.”

  Shit. While it’s a pretty dick move, I have to admire her conviction.

  “But it sounds like you didn’t share their opinion of her.”

  “I understood her.”

  Ethan drives the way he commands a room, the way he writes. With total authority. He’s efficient, if also a bit impatient. I think he likes the idea of road trips more than he likes enduring other drivers.

  “Vee was determined to change the world. By force, if necessary. She didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of her. It was irrelevant to her mission. That kind of self-assuredness is infectious, you know? Being around a person like that, if you can get past the culture shock, can give you a sort of contact high. You start seeing the world through their lens. Minor bullshit doesn’t get to you anymore. Things that used to ruin your day or drive you crazy—that petty garbage—it all becomes so small until you don’t even notice it anymore. She saw life in simple terms: there’s right and wrong, good and evil, and everything else is a lie.”

  For the first time in my life, I know what real jealousy is. Not the little pangs we feel when we see someone prettier, thinner, smarter, or richer. True, burning, aching jealousy. Because I don’t think there’s a soul in this world who would speak about me with such passionate admiration as the way Ethan describes Vivian. We should all be so fortunate to leave such witnesses in our wake.

  “So you two were close.”

  Now I understand what Addison meant about their vibe. A straight man doesn’t talk about a woman this way if there isn’t at least some level of attraction. Which makes an ugly breakup the most likely scenario for why only one of them came back from Montana.

  “She came around at a strange time in my life. Everything was happening, and I felt none of it. Every day someone was calling me up to do an appearance or give a talk. I’d never had so many people wanting to know me. If that’s not making it, what is, right? I should have been thrilled, but it felt like it was happening to someone else and I was watching through their eyes. Like you said, my life wasn’t my own anymore. Guess I lost touch with myself. Disconnected. Vee was like a jump start.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  He laughs to himself, sharp and humorless. Then he glances at me like he’s just remembered I’m sitting here.

  “I used to,” he says. “Not so much anymore. There was a lot of good about Vee, but she was also volatile and unpredictable. Didn’t know how to back down from a fight or admit when she was wrong. When her temper came out, it’d bring down a whole city block. Sometimes I think she’d start a fight purely out of boredom. You never really felt like she cared if you lived or died. If you got hit by a car right in front of her, she’d just keep walking. Some people blamed it on using, but it was all her. She was wired differently than the rest of us.”

  “Using?”

  Shame slithers under my skin. I become hyperaware of the muscles in my face, trying to maintain a neutral arrangement.

  “Mm-hmm.” He flicks his turn signal and changes lanes around a car crawling in the left lane. “Everyone’s dropped a little acid at a party, sure. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t smoked pot or tried ecstasy at least once. But Vee’s coke habit wasn’t so cute when she started throwing kitchen knives at Cara’s living room wall during a Halloween party. Like she was training for the fucking Hunger Games. Even less cute when she tells me right after I get stopped for a bad taillight in Queens that she’s holding.”

  This is what’s so difficult about staying clean. Using is easy. It’s accepting what you are, and living with it, that’s the hard part.

  I feel like a fraud. Dressed up to appear presentable, but underneath is a place dark and cavernous where a shriveled, withering, grotesque abomination hides in the deepest black. Its bones warped and brittle. Body sunken and emaciated. Skin, like the burnt pages of a book that turn to dust in your hand, covers spindly limbs. Long, jagged, bleeding wounds where claws tear at the flesh, consuming it.

  “Avery?”

  My head snaps up. “What?”

  “Where’d you go?”

  Nowhere he’s been.

  13

  The Cliff and Other Hazards

  Past three in the morning, Ethan turns down a dirt road off Old Montauk Highway. It’s pitch-black but for the truck’s headlights casting wide yellow beams at the walls of trees and shrubs on either side of us. The moon hidden behind threatening storm clouds. We drive another half mile and come to a dead end where the road empties into a dirt cul-de-sac carved out from the sylvan landscape.

  “Are we lost?”

  For the last hour or so we followed the same road through Long Island and into Montauk. I figured he’d drive until we hit water. Somehow we’ve managed to miss the ocean entirely. Which is impressive, I guess.

  Ethan cuts the engine and drops us into total darkness.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  He gets out of the truck and comes around to my side. No lights come on when the doors open. It’s just his hand helping me find the ground and the sound of the door slamming shut behind me.

  “Ethan…”

  He leads me forward, toward the wall of trees. My heart pounds in my chest, breath coming quick and shallow. He doesn’t understand, or maybe he’s forgotten; the last time I was dragged through the woods in the middle of the night, my father was shooting at us.

  “Tell me where we’re going.”

  In my pocket, I find the shell casing and roll it between my fingers.

  “I’ve got you.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his body. “Just a little farther. You’ll hear it soon.”

  We walk down a path, I think. There’s nothing in front of us but space. No branches blocking our way or bushes scraping my legs. Wherever we are, he knows it well. There’s no hesitation in his steps. We cover the length of a football field, maybe less. I can’t judge the distance with the trees thick overhead and crowding out the sky.

  Then I hear it. Enormous and powerful. Surging. We emerge from the trees to find the moon lighting our path, and walk through tall grass until we reach the edge of a sloped cliff. Twenty feet down, the ocean crashes against the shore. Out over the water, the moon is nearly full between the passing storm clouds—a brilliant silver orb casting white light rippling on the waves.

  “What do you think?” he asks, still clutching me to his side. His body is warm and solid, and it makes me a little nervous that neither of us lets go. “Worth the drive?”

  More than worth it. It’s magnificent. “I’ve never seen the ocean.” Not in person, anyway.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Not even Brighton or—”

  “Never had a reason to go to the beach. I burn under bright lamps, and Kumi is more the metropolitan type.”

  “Then I consider it an honor to be the first to show it to you.”

  Ethan takes my hand and helps me down the wooden steps to the beach below. It’s only a narrow sliver of shoreline dotted by rocks that have slid down the eroding cliff. We sit at the bottom of the stairs to
watch the waves rush in and retreat. Here in the darkness, there’s something nurturing and amniotic about the beach. The sound of the water moving like a steady heart rhythm, the night encasing me. The air smells different out here. Pure and fortifying. I feel myself changing, the salt clinging to my skin and getting trapped in my hair. Tilting my head back, I inhale a deep breath, letting the breeze wash over me.

  “I think this is my favorite place in the world,” Ethan says. His voice is hushed, barely rising over the waves. As if he doesn’t dare compete. “Because it’s private, you know? Could spend hours out here and not see another person. Almost forget there are any.”

  “There are a lot of places to get lost in the world. Plenty more secluded than this.”

  “Yeah.” He leans back on his palms. “But this one’s mine. What business do I have staking out a secret hideout in Finland, right?”

  “I guess you have a point there. The Finns should get first dibs in their own backyards.”

  “There you go. As a New Yorker, I’ve claimed this beach.”

  “How’d you find it?”

  He glances over his shoulder and back where we came from.

  “My parents’ summer house is just up there.”

  “So you’re saying we didn’t have to go traipsing through the woods. That was just, what, for funsies?”

  Ethan turns his head to face me, a coy smirk curving his lips.

  “You have to respect theatrics. It’s all about the reveal.”

  “Uh-huh. I see.”

  “Actually, the first time I broke my arm was falling off that cliff.”

  “You fell from up there?”

  That’s no small tumble. The height of a two-story building, at least.

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight, I think? Give or take a year. My brother and I were playing. We’d start, I don’t know, twenty yards back, and race at a full sprint to the edge.”

  He pauses a moment, and his voice changes. The resentment and anger rise to the surface. Darkness envelops him.

  “Except Evan thought it’d be more fun to stop short and push me over. Believe me, those were the longest seconds of my life. Landed right on my arm. Nearly snapped it in half.”

  “Shit, Ethan.”

  I’m not good at comfort. Never have been. But I know enough to see that the memories of his brother cut deep.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “After that, this is where I’d come to get away from him and be alone. As a kid, I kind of thought this place gave me superpowers, right. Because I’d lived. This was the one place I knew couldn’t hurt me.”

  Ethan doesn’t have to say it out loud. This beach is his apology. He took me here to share a piece of himself because, whatever it is, he couldn’t tell me why he missed work and reacted the way he did when I went to his loft. This is his trade for my forgiveness.

  “That’s the sweetest, saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “You’re the only person I’ve brought here. I guess it was getting a little too lonely.”

  He can’t know how much this means to me. Feeling like I’ve been at a disadvantage against him since the day we met. While that score may never be even, he’s made an effort to let me know him. To share something I would never have thought to ask for. It’s all the more meaningful because I hear in his voice the hurt that still lingers in his mind.

  “Hold out your hand.” I dig into my pocket and pull out the shell casing. Dubious, he complies, and I place the casing in the center of his palm. For a moment, he doesn’t quite know what to do or what it is—expecting it to do a trick, maybe. Then he holds it up in the moonlight to inspect the brass cylinder. Brow furrowed, he regards me with curiosity and perhaps mild alarm.

  “This is a shell casing. Avery, why are you carrying this?”

  “I have it on me at all times. Whenever I leave home. That,” I say, nodding, “is my superpower. Because I lived.”

  Ethan brings the casing closer, turning it in his hand and running his finger over the stamped indentation on the bottom.

  “This is from that night. The night your father killed all those people. It should be in evidence in a warehouse somewhere. How do you have this?”

  “The prosecutor asked my mother and me to go back out there, do a re-creation of that night, and explain how it happened. They wanted this whole map and video layout for the trial to show where and how each victim died. Brought all of the survivors at various points. Well,” I say, shrugging when Ethan questions me with a look, “all the ones they managed to subpoena. But it was just us that day. Did a step-by-step walk-through of the entire ordeal.” The parts we remembered clearly, anyway. “I was standing there while the lawyers were talking to my mother, and I saw something shiny on the ground. It was this, just lying there in the grass months later. So I put it in my pocket and never told anyone. When I get nervous or anxious—whatever—I rub it between my fingers and remind myself that if I could survive that night, I can survive this, too.”

  “Christ.”

  He hands the casing back to me and wraps his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky.

  “That’s the saddest, coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I tuck the casing back in my pocket.

  “Just don’t tell anyone I stole evidence from a murder trial.”

  “Strictly off the record. Secret’s safe with me.”

  For several minutes neither of us speaks as we sit and watch the waves. He’s easy to share the silence with. I don’t know why, we hardly know each other at all, and yet being with him feels natural. Perhaps more familiar than anyone else who’s passed through my life. It’s just something in his presence that relaxes me, takes the anxiety away.

  “Why did you want to know about Vee?” he asks.

  “No reason.”

  If I could go back, I’d have let the mystery stay in the past where it belongs. At least I could have remained blissfully ignorant that someday soon I’m going to leave Ethan disappointed. Again, I consider telling him. About Jenny and rehab and my little collection of NA chips in the bottom of the jar where I keep loose change. But this place is too nice to spoil. The moment is too perfect.

  “Hey,” he says, sitting up. “Forget what I said before. Truth is, you two are nothing alike.”

  “Yeah, no, I get it.”

  “I mean it. With everything you’ve been through in your life, no one would blame you for being a total mess, but you’re not. Avery, you’re probably one of the most well-adjusted people I’ve ever met. Prep school kids from Connecticut have more disorders.”

  “Trust me,” I say, staring at the ground. “I’m not that together.”

  He reaches out, fingers pushing the hair off my face.

  “You’re remarkable.”

  “Ethan…” A feeling like my stomach being pulled through a funnel overwhelms me. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Say nice things to me.”

  Leaning closer, he studies my face. I feel exposed, being under his scrutiny. Naked and nowhere to hide.

  “Why not?”

  I’m not sure this is real anymore. The ocean and the stars, moon watching us from above. These moments don’t happen to me. Any minute I’ll wake up and Ethan, Manhattan, and the magazine will all have been a dream. I’m strapped to a hospital bed somewhere, hallucinating through another round of detox.

  Unable to sit still any longer, I jump to my feet.

  “Because.”

  “That’s an awful reason.”

  He’s up right after me, keeping pace as I walk down the shore.

  “I wonder if you might let me try something,” he says.

  Static reaches through me, right down to my fingertips.

  “Like what?”

  “I think I should I kiss you.”

  “You think?”

  “I’d like to.”

  My pulse quickens, throbbing in my neck.

  “That’s a terrible idea,” I
say.

  Ethan is the kind of attraction that ruins people. The one you don’t come back from. He’s got relapse written all over him.

  “And yet…” Reaching out, he catches my hand to stop me walking away. Ethan turns me toward him as his other hand rises to cup the side of my face and brush his thumb under the ridge of my bottom lip. My skin is bright and alive, thrumming, everywhere his touch makes contact. It’s waking up in pitch black, for a split second uncertain which way is up. He leans in. Ethan’s hand slides to the back of my neck and pulls me toward him as he says, “I don’t care.”

  I blink, and in the darkness his lips press to mine, warm and comforting. Like they’ve always been there.

  Have you ever crashed your car in a dream? Or had the sensation of falling that jolts you awake? That’s Ethan. He’s a sudden impact that flares across every nerve. My mind stutters and halts. Instincts take over. Physical, tactile desire prevails and I kiss him back, hands finding the soft cotton of his T-shirt. Beneath my palms the muscles of his stomach contract as he breathes in and deepens the kiss, slow and gentle. Passionate, yet restrained. When he pulls away, his forehead pressed to mine, my hands slide up his chest, and I feel his heart pounding hard and quick.

  “I dreamt about this last night,” he says, voice a low rasp. One hand cradles my head, tangled in my hair, the other pressed to the small of my back. “Kissing you on this beach. I don’t know where it came from, but I woke up, and it was the worst happiness I’ve ever felt. Because I didn’t know if you’d let me and I might not get that feeling back. It would just be a memory of something that never happened.”

  They’re beautiful words. It’s easy to be seduced by them. In his arms, feeling his body, solid and strong, holding me tight, I can almost pretend we’re alone in the world. Nothing can intrude. Until thought creeps in.